Facebook surpasses Google

Social networking site Facebook is currently more popular with US web users than search engine Google, new research shows.

Figures from Hitwise show that the social media site was visited more than any other website in the country over March 6th and 7th 2010. This follows on from similar statistics revealing that Facebook was viewed more times than Google on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.

Ongoing trend

The Hitwise figures also show that Facebook is up 185 per cent in terms of traffic against figures from last year, while visits to Google have only increased by nine per cent in the same time period. In total, Facebook now accounts for 7.07 per cent of internet activity, with Google lagging behind at 7.03 per cent.

To put Facebook's popularity into perspective, the site recently announced that some 69 million players are active on its Farmville application each month. Compare this to the 18 million regular users eMarketer recently revealed are using Twitter.

A recent article from John Naughton in The Observer suggests that Facebook's longevity may be down to its willingness to co-exist with other popular internet applications. He wrote: "By gradually breaching their walled garden, the Facebook founders have managed to avoid the fate of AOL - so far. Their boldest move was the launch of Facebook Connect - which allows external services like Twitter to interact directly with subscribers' Facebook accounts."